Bitmoji Postcard by Morgan Wright
Being a teacher right now is tough. No matter what decisions are made regarding virtual or brick-and-mortar learning, someone will be upset. Parents blame us for not making the “right” choice, but seriously, what IS the right choice at this moment? If you know, please enlighten us all.
Each year, I make it a goal to build a relationship with my students so that they know I want them to succeed in all aspects of life. With all of the uncertainty surrounding school right now, one thing is for sure: I want to make this school year as “normal” as possible, and for me, that means showing my students that I am truly excited to meet them and be their teacher since day 1.
My district isn’t hosting traditional Open House sessions this year. Instead, we will be having virtual orientations via Zoom to meet our students and parents. I wanted to do something special for my kids before they begin the craziest school year of all time.
As a kid, I LOVED to receive mail. There was something magical about getting a hand-addressed envelope from the mailbox and running inside to see what was inside…… Let’s face it. I still love to get mail, even as an adult!
I decided to send my kiddos a Bitmoji postcard prior to our virtual orientation sessions. I created a Bitmoji classroom and embedded it into my Canvas home page (my district’s LMS), so I used that idea to create postcards for my students. I then used Shutterfly to create the postcards. It wa super simple and quick shipping.
It is my hope that the piece of mail will excite students about coming back to school, despite the many unknowns that surround this year.
This is how mine turned out, and I LOVE them!
Below are directions you can use to create postcards for your kiddos, too. Between the postcards, stamps and envelopes, it only cost me around $20. That is totally worth it to make students excited about this crazy school year!
Create a Bitmoji character
You can do this on the Bitmoji Google Chrome extension or on the Bitmoji app on your phone.
Go to Adobe Spark & login
You could also use Canva to do this!
Play around with the different design options! I recommend using ‘collage.’
Create & design your postcard however you want it to look!
Save the file on your computer
Send the file to your phone so that you can save it on your phone
Download the Shutterfly app on your phone
When you open the app, click on this image that appears on the top of the screen
8. Select either 4x4 or 4x6- both should be free! I used the 4x6 option
9. Your photos from your phone should appear on the screen. Select the Bitmoji file you created earlier.
10. Once you select the file, click the orange “next” button in the top right hand corner of the screen.
11. The most images you can add to your cart at a time is 9. Be sure to click the “+” button until it reaches 9 prints/images.
12. Add those 9 prints/images to your cart.
13.You can repeat this process for however many postcards you need. For example, I have 21 kids in my homeroom. I repeated this process 3 times so that I would have enough postcards in my cart for each student, with some to spare!
14.The only thing you should have to pay for is shipping, which is amazing! I ordered 27 postcards and only had to pay a little over $5 for all of them.
I hope all of you have the greatest school year yet! Stay strong, teachers. You’ve got this!
Written by Co-Author Morgan Wright